Siebenaler: Diablo III auction has troubling implications

Money has become a great gaming equalizer in Activision Blizzard’s new fantasy computer game Diablo III, which sold more than 3.5 million copies on its record-breaking launch day. Diablo III players can participate in a real-cash auction site that allows sales and purchases of in-game items using real currency.

This groundbreaking experience has had similar iterations as self-sustaining in-game “economies,” but never on this large a scale. Players can withdraw the money or increase their in-game currency from sales. Players are charged a flat fee to list items and another fee if the item sells.

Game publisher profits increase with each transaction, but it must contend with exchange rates, site security and, most importantly, cheaters who face a lifetime ban. Predictably, reporting suspicious activity is encouraged.

Diablo III's auction site

This whole system can be seen as a cheat because players no longer have to be good at a game to get great things. Rewards can be had if you have the money as hard-core Diablo III players could possibly identify a player’s misrepresented skill level or achievements in the game.

This auction site curtails the whole satisfaction function of gaming. Sure, it can be fun to buy stuff, but the game developer’s carefully planned designs and challenges will not mean much with these huge shortcuts.

There are some disadvantages for players looking for these shortcuts as well. “Newbies” can get a quick advantages, but must set up PayPal accounts to secure funds and use secure procedures (special codes, passwords, etc.), which can be a hassle at times.

This auction site might be ideal for people who have less game time in their schedules. They can still get ahead in this game by investing their money, which allows them more player powers to vanquish more powerful foes, but how do these vanquished foes feel when they find out they have been beaten by a 15-year-old … who just bought a killer sword with his $100 weekly allowance money from his parents … a sword that took weeks to find in the game?

Sure, the vanquished player might never find out all these details, but they certainly get a sense of who they are through online chats and in-game behavior observations. Could this auction site create new animosity among players? It might, but would it matter among a war-filled, horror-action game?

Diablo III is available in standard and collector’s editions on PC and Mac computers.

The Gold Knight: Bidding on an Oscar

How much is an Oscar worth? Some might say priceless. Others, a million bucks (An Investor’s Guide to the Oscars). One statuette fetched nearly $90,000 at the end of July.

On July 29, an unidentified buyer bid $89,625.00 for an 1942 Oscar statuette. Buying an Oscar is a rare occurrence since an Academy rule created in 1950 requires winners to sign an agreement stating they will not sell an Oscar without first offering to sell it back to the Academy for $1.

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Lot 46076 at the July Dallas Signature Music and Entertainment Auction was an Academy Award for Best Sound Recording, given to Nathan Levinson for “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” The auction, hosted by Heritage Auction, had eight Internet/mail/phone bidders, according to its website.

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Almost 800 items were up for bid, according to Reuters, including guitars owned by Elvis Presley. A 1946 Marilyn Monroe — signed as Norma Jeane Dougherty — model release form sold for $19,120. Another awards trophy, an MTV VMA Award to Pearl Jam’s Dave Abbruzzese, sold for $7,170.

While $90,000 may seem like a lot of money for some, it’s chunk change compared to what other Oscars have fetched.

A decade ago, in July of 2001, Steven Spielberg purchased Bette Davis’ Best Actress Oscar for $578,000 at the auction house Christie’s. Davis won the statuette for her role in 1938’s “Jezebel” and the golden Oscar was valued between $150,000 and $200,000. Spielberg planned to give the Oscar back to the Academy, which is what he did after purchasing Clark Gable’s Best Actor Oscar for “It Happened One Night” for $607,500 in 1996.

Legend has it that Davis, who died in 1987, coined the term “Oscar” for the Academy Award after she said that its bottom resembled that of her husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson.

Toledo Free Press Lead Designer James A. Molnar blogs about all things Oscar at TheGoldKnight.com.